That scene alone probably would have required an extra $5 Million to shoot, plus another week or two, considering the technical challenge of combining water with electrical animatronics! Still, would have been worth it to show them sneaking past a full-sized T rex animatronic.

Also interesting to note that this was early enough in the film's production that Lex was still younger than Tim.

Here's hoping it's picked up for a future film, even if it means doing it mostly with CGI with only a handful of animatronic close-ups.

It is cool to see these, and it is one of my favorite sequences in the novel as it was portrayed there, however it's probably better we did not seen it for two reasons.

Firstly, as I see it, the film is as it is pretty much at optimal length, the perfect point where it doesn't seem too short or too long. Adding this in would've needed like another 10 minutes of screen time, if not more? At the worst case scenario, some existing sequences might've been dropped in favor of it, which would've been tragic. If I had to choose between the Gallimimus scene and this one, I much rather have the Gallimimus as it's compact as well as shows T-Rex as real predator hunting other animals. Not monster like the sequels have tended to portray the carnivores.

Secondly, considering how poorly the animatronic T-Rex handled water, it could've been a total disaster to try to make it work. Yes they probably would've constructed third model altogether on top of the other two, but I'm not entirely convinced it'd looked that great. Also, T-Rex sitting and sleeping... it is difficult for me to imagine how that could've looked great? Just looking at those storyboards, and even imagining the scene in the novel when it's sitting there, I see it as pretty awkward. Probably not translating well to screen.

As for adapting this for JP5 or JP6... really hope not. Time of adaptations from Crichton's material has way passed IMO, TLW should've been the final time for that. Let's finally do something original and not hang into old strings. And in any case, we sort of got river scene in JP3 already, although heavily modified and not as interesting (and without the sleeping bit). Finally, this sequence fully in CGI doesn't strike as exciting, especially if it's that JW level of over exploitation

You don't want the Spinosaurus effect here. Which is, you know, either the dinosaur stalking the humans all over the island on purpose, or just stumbling upon them on random change time after time. It starts to feel artificial at some point. By Grant and the kids only meeting the T-Rex twice after the initial attack (not counting the distant roar @ parameter fence), which are also both very brief instances, you are still within safe parameters. If they met the T-Rex three times after the attack, which what this lagoon scene would have meant, it'd been a bit too much of a coincidence. Even if the Rex had not hunted them on purpose, like Spino, it'd still been way too much of a random chance to have that many meetups. Also the lagoon scene would've been lengthy. Now what we have left in the film is only two, both of which have nothing to do with the relationship between the humans and dinosaurs. You have Rex attacking the Gallimimus, and Raptors. Never really paying attention to the humans. I mean, not even in the initial attack, it only had moving objects inside the vehicles panicking and making it curious. It feels natural. Like an animal. Something the sequels never ever really managed with carnivores.